Uke, ghost stories and lyrics.

1. Bettany reminds us five minutes before departure that she wants to take her ukulele to school. We remind her that it is not tuned, so she can't. There are tears. When I get back from the school run, I find that Nick has spent an hour teaching himself to tune it so it will be ready for next week.

2. I discover that I never did finish listening to an audiobook of dramatised ghost stories by M R James's. So I've got a bit of a treat in store. 

3. For our writing class, Anne has looked into songwriting, and tells us what she has discovered. Our faces light up as we understand -- properly -- that verse, chorus, middle eight and coda are just lines of poetry. And that we can all write poetry, so we can probably write passable lyrics.